Improving the GCA5 GURPS 4e Official Character Sheet

[johndallman]

Now that I've made all the fonts Black Arial, 10 point except for the "Included" and "Contains" notes, which are 8 point, I can actually look at it on-screen.

Bugs:

• The example character I'm using (Armin has a copy) has six quirks (due to a failed Fright Check). The "Disadvantages and Quirks" block on page 1 gets just the first of those quirks, but the last disadvantage is highlighted and so is the first quirk.

Suggestions:

• When there is far too much stuff to fit on the first page, don't try to get a bit of everything on there, it's confusing. Instead, put the singular stuff about the character on the first page: basic stats, encumbrance/move/dodge, portrait, TL, status, etc.
• Then put stuff on page 1 that will fit entirely on there: perks, quirks, cultural familiarities and languages often will.
• Then do Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills, all of which are potentially lengthy. Have just one of them breaking over any given page boundary.
• Postpone the weapons, Speed/Range, and so on until you've got past everything that costs points. That makes the page with them a natural place for the point summary.
• Then start the equipment and once that's all printed, the load-outs.

The basic idea is to have logic that produces a standard character sheet layout for characters simple enough to fit onto it, but expands in a friendlier manner for characters who won't.

[Phil Masters]

Talking of which - I used the Options for this sheet to include the character's Portrait, but it just doesn't appear anywhere. (And yes, the character has a Portrait.)

[Kesendeja]

I can echo the desire to have Advantages, Disadvantages and skills kept together.

In the primary game I'm running the players have a lot of all three and it's somewhat confusing and annoying (at least for them) to have to keep flipping sheets to find where they've all gone. Mind you, it's a high level game, and most sheets have a hard time with those.

In my other game, they're Monster Hunter level, but much newer to the game, so it's confusing for them.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Talking of which - I used the Options for this sheet to include the character's Portrait, but it just doesn't appear anywhere. (And yes, the character has a Portrait.)

I haven't seen that bit of misbehaviour. With the character I'm using for testing, the portrait appears on page 1 if I set the character sheet option for that, otherwise on the last page.

[johndallman]

Something that Phoenix has, and whose usefulness I had forgotten until I started trying out this sheet with GCA5: selecting the density for highlighting. The current highlighting is rather dense, more so than it needs to be,

[Armin]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The basic idea is to have logic that produces a standard character sheet layout for characters simple enough to fit onto it, but expands in a friendlier manner for characters who won't.

That is basically every block sheet design (more are coming to GCA5 as time allows). This NOT the Official sheet design.

The Official sheet is a pre-printed 'best fit for most users' design that I am required to mimic. When GCA4 was first released (so long ago) I took a huge amount of criticism for the few liberties I took in doing that (including the fact that I didn't always print *some* part of Disadvantages & Quirks if Advantages filled that box) and see why I make changes in that structure judiciously now, and why those are always options that are off by default.

I think everything I've ever done for the Official sheet has been roundly criticized. Except the fonts. Until this week, I don't think anyone has ever complained about my choice of different fonts for the 'sheet' versus 'character' text. And that font choice is *absolutely intentional*. Those have been settings in sheet options for the sheet since the very beginning, and I chose two fonts almost everyone should have. And the Serif font is because the SJGames sheet uses one--I'd not generally choose a Serif font for form text.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Something that Phoenix has, and whose usefulness I had forgotten until I started trying out this sheet with GCA5: selecting the density for highlighting. The current highlighting is rather dense, more so than it needs to be,

I'm not sure what you mean by density here. Do you mean the level of opacity for the shading of the alternate line items?

[Armin]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Talking of which - I used the Options for this sheet to include the character's Portrait, but it just doesn't appear anywhere. (And yes, the character has a Portrait.)

If the portrait shows up in GCA, it should show up on the sheet. I suppose there could be a memory issue or something, if the image is really big.

Which options did you set for the Portrait?

You may need to send me the portrait and the character so I can test things out.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Armin

I'm not sure what you mean by density here. Do you mean the level of opacity for the shading of the alternate line items?

Yes, exactly so. Sorry, I forgot the correct term.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Armin

If the portrait shows up in GCA, it should show up on the sheet. I suppose there could be a memory issue or something, if the image is really big.

...Aaaand now it's showing up just fine. Huh. Turning it off and on again, I guess.